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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27860733">Lies My President Told Me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jo_Lasalle/pseuds/Jo%20Lasalle'>Jo Lasalle (Jo_Lasalle)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Five Ways Lee Adama Never Met Laura Roslin [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Battlestar Galactica (2003)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Episode Related, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2006-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2006-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:28:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,343</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27860733</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jo_Lasalle/pseuds/Jo%20Lasalle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the attacks on the Colonies, Lee ends up on a different ship.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Laura Roslin &amp; Lee Adama</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Five Ways Lee Adama Never Met Laura Roslin [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2039657</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Lies My President Told Me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story is part of a "Five Ways" series - five AU first meetings between Laura Roslin and Lee Adama. </p><p>Re-uploaded for archival purposes. It's been over 15 years, and so any tagging or summaries are going to be extremely bare-bones.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Lee isn't scared with the missile on his tail. It's easy enough, routine, just don't lose your head. He's trained for this; he's done it dozens of times in the simulator.</p><p>Scared comes later. Scared comes when he's floating, helpless, damaged from a missile that was real. There may be more; he doesn't know. He doesn't know anything. He knows only that it's bad, only that this wasn't a stray incident, only that he cannot move.</p><p>They'll come and get him. That's what he's been told. But the captain of the heavy transport was scared, too.</p><p>Other ships have arrived here in the time he has been floating. Lee counts them, estimates capabilities, assesses damage. Ignores how his hands are getting sweaty inside his flight gloves. Breathes, calmly.</p><p>The Viper continues her spin, slow and unimpressed, momentum he couldn't stop before the engine gave out. Now the transport comes back into view, and Lee makes himself be patient because he's in no more immediate danger than the rest of them. Close to the long, multi-level ship is an egg-shaped transport vessel, ablaze with leaking fuel and oxygen, glowing bright on the starboard side while escape pods scramble away from the undamaged port bow.</p><p>His earpiece activates and Lee's breath hitches, and he tells himself to calm the frak down. It's the captain's voice, not as shaky this time, more awkward. "Captain, I'm afraid it's going to take us a bit longer. We've got some people off a transport wreck here, and-- it may take us a little while."</p><p>Lee nods to himself. They're civilians; they need rescuing. "I saw it." He adjusts the ventilation of his helmet to stop it from fogging up. "I'm not going anywhere."</p><p>"Just a little longer," the captain says. Trying for reassuring, Lee assumes, and almost managing it.</p><p>"I'm all right." The transport slides out of view. Lee checks his oxygen; it's plenty. Nothing to worry about. Nothing except he can't run, and he can't fight, and he might die here in his father's old Viper, and there's a good anecdote about William Adama and his son.</p><p>They're prepared. They've trained for it. Even if nobody saw this coming. Lee has seen action twice in his career, skirmishes when his squadron was called in to deal with a smuggling ring, and he cannot help but wonder how far training can take them.</p><p>Might be the hour of the veterans. They'll call his father back from retirement. Won't he just love that.</p><p>He sees another ship arrive, a few clicks in the distance, and wonders who got the word out that this is the meeting place, and then a flat grey shape settles over the cockpit, blocking out the stars.</p><p>The scare makes him jump in the confines of his pilot seat, and his finger's on the trigger but he's got no power, no defense. And then he reads "<em>--press Connect Caprica</em>" in huge black letters and almost laughs, but the relief is a bit like having the wind knocked out of him.</p><p>He's still on edge when he feels the thud of the magnet hooking on to his ship, but at last the spinning stops.</p><p>Slowly, he's pulled into a small hangar deck. His radio remains silent. It's a wobbly procedure when he's set down, and the Viper tips to the side without the proper support. Lee glances around as the deck is re-pressured. A small freighter, it seems; a tiny but spotless shuttle has been moved to the side to make room for him.</p><p>A woman with short, spiky hair steps up to the lower side of the cockpit, waving at him and then at the surroundings, as if her presence alone didn't indicate that oxygen has returned. Lee releases the seal of the cockpit and pushes it up by hand until the safety catches, then balances awkwardly in his tilted ship.</p><p>"You need a ladder or something?" she asks. Lee stares at her; it's not a ridiculous question just-- odd, so normal, like he didn't just have a nuke on his tail. Then he shakes himself out of it because it doesn't change the fact that steps would be helpful, but she's embarrassed now, retreating a pace so he can jump down.</p><p>"We saw you were stranded," she says. No; she may be casual, but there's an edge to her voice, and her eyes stay too long, then flicker away too fast. She knows there's a war on; she's scared too. "The skipper thought you could use a lift."</p><p>"Yes. Thanks." Lee takes off his helmet. His hair is drenched with sweat.</p><p>"What happened to you?"</p><p>He needs to get back to the Fleet, and he needs to find out what the hell is going on. "I dodged a missile, but I got some of the blast," he says, turning to get an outside look of the damage to his Viper, but her wide-eyed stare makes him stop.</p><p>"Missiles," she repeats quietly. "So-- there are... whoever's doing this, there are ships-- enemy ships here?"</p><p>They'd be dead if there were, Lee knows that for sure. But he doesn't say that. He says, "It was a hit and run attack," and tries to look like someone not entirely clueless.</p><p>Exhaling, she gives him a tight little nod, as if she's decided to take it as reassurance. It's probably the uniform.</p><p>"Your communications out?" he asks, because he needs to know what they have, what they can do. Then he remembers that she's not a Fleet specialist.</p><p>She responds anyway. "Audio is out," she reports. "We've been doing signal light all day. Sorry if we spooked you."</p><p>"That's all right. I appreciate the help."</p><p>"We were on our way back to Caprica," she says, gesturing around. He nods, chucking his helmet up into the cockpit. Freighter. Got it. "Then we got the call to hold all traffic and these coordinates, but we hit another ship. Some huge passenger ship, it jumped, right in front of us and we collided. Knocked out our dish. I couldn't fix it."</p><p>"What was the latest you got?" he asks in as cold a tone as he can find.</p><p>She doesn't flinch; she's got it together now. "Multiple nuclear attacks," she says. "That's what they said. Aerelon, Caprica, possibly others."</p><p>"Right." Too huge to think about; it'll only make them useless, make Lee useless.</p><p>"I'm Brice, by the way," she says, holding out a hand that is cold when he shakes it, and as clammy as his own.</p><p>"Lee Adama."</p><p>"Quite a day, isn't it?" She wipes her hand on her overall and tries a smile, and somehow that makes him look away with a lump in his throat.</p><p>Drawing a slow breath, he pointedly looks around, then at the door.</p><p>Brice starts as if caught at something, then snaps in. "Oh. The bridge is that way."</p><p>~*~*~*</p><p>The lighting is normal as they hurry through narrow corridors. No power failure; good. But they climb up two decks through a narrow shaft and Lee has seen the elevator door, so those must be down.</p><p>"Whose ship is this?" Lee asks her as she gives him a hand through the hatch.</p><p>She helps him to his feet, then wipes her hands on her overall. "We're <em>Express Connect</em>. You know, <em>'The lowest fee for your priority'</em>?"</p><p>She doesn't exactly sing it, but there's a lilt to the last word that makes her pause, then hunch in on herself with an embarrassed little grimace. Lee smiles. Already it feels strange on his face. "Yeah, I've heard."</p><p>"The skipper is Jackson Malena."</p><p>Lee hears the voices from two bends in the corridor away.</p><p>Six people are on the bridge, which is on top of the ship and has 180° visibility. A vulnerable place for the command centre to be, and with that much window, but then this ship wasn't made for fighting. Still it's a small room, tight with tension and the people crowding into the space behind the pilot's console.</p><p>They're wearing the same blue work overalls as Brice, in varying degrees of dirtiness, and a stocky man with a tool belt is almost yelling as Lee steps in. "Jump <em>where</em>, for frak's sake?"</p><p>"You know frak all about what's going on, Jackson." The woman doesn't have to yell for her voice to be heard loud and clear, her height adding to the impression. "This place has a huge bull's eye over it."</p><p>"Sagittaron hasn't been attacked," someone else chimes in, a woman who's the only one wearing a suit, "we could--"</p><p>"We don't know that!" the first speaker barks, whipping his head around to glower at her. That's when he sees Lee and halts; his silence shuts the others up. His face is pale under a dark beard, but blotches of red are appearing on his forehead.</p><p>"Brice found you," he says to Lee, his voice strained from not yelling, and offers his hand. That would be the man in charge then.</p><p>Lee steps closer. "Yes. Thanks for the help."</p><p>Malena shakes his head. "Any time." His eyes sweep Lee's flight suit, as if the Viper wasn't identification enough. But given the kind of day they're having, Lee thinks it's lucky he got picked up at all. The attack on their worlds and a broken communications system, and they stopped for a piece of floating junk.</p><p>"You're Colonial Fleet," Malena says, nodding to himself with some distraction. "You seem to be a long way from your carrier." It's an oddly small talk thing to say, and Malena doesn't look that interested in the answer, his eyes flying over the faces of his crew without focus.</p><p>"I was escorting a passenger vessel."</p><p>They're all scared, fidgety, but Lee can see Malena has kept them together. They've been aware enough and coordinated enough to come through with a rescue mission. It could be worse, on this ship.</p><p>"I'm Jackson Malena." The captain holds out his hand again and there's a frozen moment when he realises he's done this already. The red of his skin darkens, and Lee is just about to shake hands a second time when Malena pulls back to search for something or other in one of his many pockets.</p><p>"Captain Lee Adama," Lee says into the awkward silence.</p><p>Malena nods again. "We just came out of a jump when we heard."</p><p>"What's the latest you know?"</p><p>It's a crutch: report, focus, save the panic for later. It works for Lee and works for them, too. Malena lets go of an uneven breath, and his hand is without purpose when he runs it over his short-cropped hair, but he's there. "Our communications system is broken," he says, in a flat voice, his eyes shifting over to the smartly-dressed woman. "But Sheyla here has a portable wireless and she's been picking up enough for us to know-- we've heard about Caprica. Picon. Aerelon. And the attacks on the Fleet." That's why Sheyla is on the bridge. She's a passenger; there are probably more.</p><p>Malena's eyes catch on the wings on Lee's suit, and Lee refuses to think of his father, back in the fight, welcoming it.</p><p>"Right," he says, then clears his throat. "Any word from the defense ministry? Civil defense? Anything?"</p><p>"No," Malena answers. "There's an automated broadcast, and updates now and then. We came out of our jump here and were told to stay before some transport knocked off our dish."</p><p>"Told? By whom?"</p><p>Something flickers over Malena's face and there's sudden pressure in the room, a new fear, an option they hadn't considered. "Did you verify the transmission was Colonial?" Lee presses, even as he knows the answer.</p><p>"We got the message from a Colonial transport," Malena says slowly. He looks around, gathering the others' attention, and it's only then Lee realises they've all been watching him. "We were told that this is the rendezvous point for civilian refugees." Malena's voice is low, but conceding nothing. This is what we got, his defiant stare is saying. It's not like you're offering us anything better. "Until we hear something else, we're staying put." That last is partly addressed to the woman who wanted to jump away, but mostly it's for Lee's benefit, as is the determined set of the captain's jaw.</p><p>"I got the message; seemed like the real thing. We don't use codes around here." The pilot, who's sitting with his elbows on his knees, head drawn in low. He has a calm, conciliatory voice, so it doesn't sound like a challenge when he adds, "We're not Fleet."</p><p>Like Lee is unaware of that. But Malena isn't without a point. They're damaged, and nobody knows anything, and running off to nowhere is no alternative, so he nods and relents. "All right. Have you told your passengers yet?"</p><p>Malena's face turns vaguely apprehensive at the question, and Lee thinks maybe he was blunt but gods, this isn't the time. Then Malena looks at Brice and the fourth woman in the room, a quiet, grey-haired person next to Sheyla who never struck Lee as a person of authority. It's her the captain's eyes come to rest on, and some silent communication passes between them. Malena says, "We didn't want to, at first."</p><p>"We didn't want a panic," the woman says; she might be the calmest of the lot but her eyes are haunted, too. Lee tries to imagine telling the passengers, telling <em>anyone</em> about this, about their world ending, and even in his head he runs into a wall of unspeakable. "Something got out, though," she goes on. "There are rumours all over the ship, so we've got to let them know." She's looking at Lee, and yet he thinks she's talking to the captain; there's persuasion in her voice and she's not regarding Lee as if she thinks she needs his approval.</p><p>"I came straight up to the bridge when I heard," Sheyla says, as if to make sure it wasn't her fault, but nobody reacts. It's not like it matters anyway.</p><p>Lee looks around at the crew of five plus one civilian, all six of them pale and edgy but not paralysed. It could be worse. They need to find out more, and they need to get ready for an emergency run.</p><p>"When you tell them," he says, nodding at Malena, "give them something to do, or they'll be climbing the walls."</p><p>Malena exchanges another glance with the grey-haired woman, but there's no resolution in it, no decision. "All right," Malena says then, giving Lee a quick look. "I guess we'll do that then."</p><p>~*~*~*</p><p>Lee spends a futile half-hour on the ship's communications system, Brice by his side rattling of technical details in a way that makes it obvious she's the better mechanic by far, but he tries anyway, only with the dish simply <em>gone</em>, there's really not much they can do.</p><p>They consider fixing up his Viper to transmit from inside the ship, but that plan dies when Brice shows him the structural specs of the hangar deck. Brice also tells him, as she's experimentally hooking up the Viper's com system to see if it'll work without powering up the little ship's engine, that they've got seventeen passengers, six crew. That they've been making the run between Caprica and Virgon for the last three months, and it's a tricky one because Virgon's system is so clogged up with commercial traffic that <em>Express Connect</em> doesn't have a permit for jump procedures. She tells him she hasn't had a breath of outside air since they had to put the ship in dry dock last summer, Caprica summer, and then her face goes pinched and teary and she chucks the wrench into her tool kit hard. "Stupid," she says, wiping under her nose with the sleeve of her overall. "We've got no frakking dish, period. Even if the connection works, we'd never have enough range."</p><p>So they go back to the bridge, where the grey-haired woman -- the captain's wife, he has learned -- is running an engines diagnostic and tries to keep her young assistant focused on the job by talking in a tone so chipper it makes Lee want to throw things. Brice points him to a chair, not meeting his eyes when she says she'll be back, and walks out, holding on to her tool kit with both arms.</p><p>"Jenna, have you heard anything--" A passenger, a middle-aged man who's staring at the captain's wife from the doorway, making everybody pause and turn; Jenna Malena goes over and says a few words, enough to make him leave, but she knows nothing, hasn't heard anything, and she's biting her lip when she turns back around, her eyes on the floor.</p><p>That man is not the last one. Lee wishes they'd declare the bridge off limits, but people keep wandering in with their sentence fragments and their wide, fearful eyes, and Lee wishes they'd stay away. He wishes he weren't sitting here with nothing to do, but he can't very well go and ask Jenna to keep him busy; it's pathetic and she looks like she's barely keeping it together. He wonders where Malena went. There's nothing he can do about his Viper without a tech team. There's hardly anything any of them can do. There are rumours about the attack flying about and then there are calculations, because nobody knows anything and Lee thinks of his mother and yield ranges and where a nuke could hit and she'd still live, but then he stops because he knows nothing, either, and Sheyla-with-the-wireless is standing in the doorway and her hands are shaking.</p><p>It's impractical they didn't move the wireless to the bridge, Lee thinks, before he gets cold all over. She walks in and comes to stand before Lee, and it's odd the way she's avoiding the others but then again Lee wears a uniform, it's not entirely unexpected.</p><p>"Virgon," she says in a tiny, raspy voice. "They lost all contact an hour ago." She presses her lips together and Lee exhales sharply. Just more of the same. More dead, millions of them, and it's getting so large to be incomprehensible, but then there's a muffled cry in the corner, Jenna Malena has her hand over her mouth and she's holding on to her console with a white-knuckled hand.</p><p>"There were multiple-- multiple detonations over the northern hemisphere," Sheyla says, not looking at the captain's wife. Jenna comes over -- slowly, like she's thinking about each step -- and takes Sheyla's arm, shaking it, feebly more than anything else. It's a still moment, hovering, until there's a sob, and it's Sheyla who sort of crumples and Jenna holds her up; she's a passenger and they've probably never seen each other before, but their world has just been destroyed and Jenna is comforting her like she can't comfort whoever it is she left behind on Virgon.</p><p>Lee doesn't know where to look and he thinks of his mother's house and the last words he ever said to his father, and he stands and turns his back on both women, blinking fast so the stars stay sharp as he stares out the window. There are a lot of ships out there. Refugees. Nobody has a home anymore.</p><p>"I need to find Jackson," he hears Jenna's voice, tight and shaky. Sheyla is still standing there when Lee turns back around, one fist pressed to her mouth. The kid at Jenna's console is hunched over the keys and controls, making himself so small it looks painful. Lee puts a hand to the back of his chair, wants to ask Sheyla to sit, but she doesn't even see him. She looks pale and ill. She should sit.</p><p>It's all they can do, sit and hold themselves together. All Lee can do on this ship. Sit, and wait for more.</p><p>~*~*~*</p><p>Brice has new grease stains on her overall when she comes back, and a hard set to her mouth. Lee asks her if they've signalled to the Colonial transport that they've taken him on board. It's a long shot; he's worthless right now, a pilot without a ship, but it's his only chance of any Fleet ship in the sector learning about his whereabouts.</p><p>Brice says yes, and then she checks the monitor next to the one Jenna left for the kid to watch. "How's it coming?" she asks him.</p><p>"Part one looks good," he answers. "No anomalies."</p><p>"And the rest?" She checks out his screen and nods almost absent-mindedly, pleased with the numbers she finds there.</p><p>"That's all I've got so far."</p><p>Brice's head whips around. "You've been at this since we got <em>hit</em>. How much longer--"</p><p>"I was waiting for Jenna! I'm not pushing any buttons and then have you come back--"</p><p>"It's a frakking diagnostic!"</p><p>The hysterical edge to her voice gives Lee's stomach a twist, and the kid's face shows a kind of anxious that's not related to being yelled at by the ship's engineer. He's cracking.</p><p>After a moment, Brice exhales slowly, rubbing a hand over her face that leaves shadowy traces on her cheek. "Right. Whatever. Just do it, okay?" She doesn't wait to see if the boy will pull it together; he turns towards his console and Lee looks away.</p><p>The pilot kept his back turned on the episode; he's engaged in some manoeuvre or other, and Lee wishes for a moment he could take over navigation even if it's not challenging work, even if it only means steering them around the damaged ships that are drifting.</p><p>He starts when Brice steps into his line of sight, staring at what Lee thinks is the environmental control display for the lower decks as if she's trying to memorise it.</p><p>"The captain's in a bad state," she says tonelessly. Both hands on the console, she enters commands that Lee doesn't follow. He's not sure she does, either.</p><p>"They're from Virgon?"</p><p>She nods jerkily. "Two of their daughters are there. Were there. Whatever. He's not taking it well."</p><p>They can't afford that; Lee doesn't understand this ship yet but he knows they can't afford a captain losing focus in the middle of all this. "He's not going-- he doesn't want to jump there, does he? Try to find them?"</p><p>Brice's flighty hands come to a halt, and she turns to Lee with a stare that's hard underneath the worry. "He's not an idiot." It's in her voice that she's been crying; she's just drawn him a line and he heard that, too.</p><p>"Great," he says flatly. "Good to know." Damn. He should be nicer. Not a good time to be snapping at people.</p><p>Brice seems to know that, too, averting her eyes with a guilty-looking flinch.</p><p>"Have you done an inventory?" he asks, and that comes out better, diplomatic. "Food supplies, water. We might depend on our stores for a while."</p><p>She stares off into nothing for a moment, thinking, her hand at her mouth, as if she's about to bite her nails, but then she looks at him and drops her hand.</p><p>"We're a freighter, we've got that stuff on file," she says, with a forced little smile. "But I'll ask the captain anyway."</p><p>~*~*~*</p><p>"I knew someone on Picon."</p><p>Lee helps a girl get down two decks to where the passengers' galley is. He found her staring at the handrail as if climbing down a set of steps involved complicated mathematics, a ghostly shade of white. She looks just old enough to be out of school. Lee stands below her and steadies her foot when she can't seem to find the step.</p><p>"But I wasn't even sad anymore." She doesn't sound like someone who's not sad. She sounds barely conscious with horror. "I didn't even care anymore. I just thought of home, you know?"</p><p>He left the bridge after a while. It's a place where things are done, decisions made, and sitting there doing nothing made him crazy.</p><p>This isn't any better.</p><p>He takes her to the galley, embarrassed by his relief when someone there takes her by the arm, says something about a glass of water. But they're all scared.</p><p>It's like a bad dream, walking the corridors to distant sounds of people crying, staring at the pale faces of people who look like they're sleepwalking.</p><p>Good that they're calm, he tells himself. Better than a panic. Better than an out of control ship.</p><p>A man asks him if he's heard anything of the battlestar <em>Triton</em>; his daughter is with the air group there.</p><p>"Those battlestars, they're pretty well protected, aren't they? Pretty hard to-- to get even with a nuke, I think."</p><p>Not like a planet. Not like people in cities.</p><p>Sometime between one terrible report and the next, between Jenna Malena leaving to tell the passengers -- Lee can't imagine what she told them, how you'd tell anyone such a thing -- and the absent, broken girl, it's sunk in. The colonies are gone.</p><p>Maybe his mother didn't even know it. Maybe she was off somewhere, out of range of the alarm that spread after the first hit. Maybe she never had to be afraid.</p><p>"I haven't heard anything," Lee says, being truthful, wanting to be gentle. "But they build them pretty tough, yeah." And maybe hope, foolish hope is bad because the sudden thought of his father -- his father is in space, his father and Kara are in space and that might just be the safest place, they might live -- it drives the air from his lungs and he can't do this now.</p><p>It's worse than fighting. Fighting, there's a point when fear switches off and you just <em>go</em> and <em>do</em> and then maybe you die, but it's not like this. He might as well be out there spinning in his Viper for all the direction they have.</p><p>He tries to find the hangar deck, hoping to find Brice, hoping for a task, but he's not sure about the route they took and this is no time to get lost on a stupid freighter.</p><p>He meets more people on his way back to the bridge, but he avoids their eyes and their questions.</p><p>~*~*~*</p><p>They don't need an inventory. Malena tells him that when he steps inside the control centre of the ship; Malena's eyes are redder than when Lee came aboard but his face is grim, cold. His wife is with him, and the tall woman he'd been fighting with earlier, a few pieces of paper scattered over the console they're standing at. Brice is on the floor underneath the pilot's chair, doing what looks like a cable switch, the kid assistant perched on the edge of the pilot's chair, watching her.</p><p>"It's all building parts and a few pieces of private mail," the woman says to Lee. She has a loud, grating voice, all the more piercing for the hushed fragility that's muffling the rest of the ship. "The cargo. As for food; well, we've stocked up for a two week run with three days spare, but cooling storage is limited, so, there's not much extra." She stops, her gaze sliding over to Malena as if she's only now realising she's been giving a report to Lee, and then her chin comes up somewhat defiantly.</p><p>Two weeks, three days to spare. "That's not going to help us much," Lee says, but without real urgency. He figures it'll worry him more once they've survived this day, once they have an idea of where to go. What is left.</p><p>Malena nods, and Lee figures he's got similar thoughts. "We'll deal with that when the time comes." There's a background hum on the bridge that smoothes out Malena's voice, takes out the tremble that Lee can see in his hands as he shuffles the papers together. Jenna pushes over the ones farthest away from him; they touch briefly, and there's something intimate and awful about the way they're not looking at each other. Lee doesn't know enough to know what it means, but he finds himself studying the papers that are upside down from where he's standing.</p><p>"How did this happen?" Still loud, penetrating, fiery eyes fixed on him again, and he's taken aback by the sudden emotion, the hard set of her sharply-boned face.</p><p>Silence follows the demand-- the <em>angry</em> demand, and it should be expected, it's what people do, but Lee can't find a reply.</p><p>"Kerrin--" It's Brice's voice that drops into the quiet, hesitantly.</p><p>Kerrin takes a breath, but it's not for calm. "I mean, was there anything? Anything brewing, or threats or some <em>faction...</em> There must have been <em>something</em>, you don't just go and--"</p><p>It takes him a moment that that's the uniform, too, some idea that he must know why anyone would be dropping nuclear bombs on their homes, and he opens his mouth but even the composed, useless answer he should give is dry and silent on his tongue.</p><p>"You can't think one of our own <em>colonies</em>--" Jenna barely breathes the words.</p><p>"This doesn't just <em>happen</em>! You don't wake up one morning and decide to kill a few million-- a few million--" No; too huge for her, too. But she's not crying. Lee stares at her, shivering with anger, and he gets it, he understands lashing out, but she's crew, she has a job to do and he wants Malena, who is her boss, who is her <em>captain</em>, to shut her up because this carries, this carries high over the droning background noise and beyond the bridge and if they start now-- if they start now--</p><p>She jerks her head around, away from the Malenas, who are standing very close to each other, and away from Lee's frozen speechlessness, and it settles, she fights it down.</p><p>Lee steps back from the console, turns around, focuses on the ships he can see through the wide window, past the scared kid in the pilot's chair and Brice sitting on the floor, as dumbstruck as he's feeling. His breathing is a little shaky, and he feels hot in his flight suit again, buckled in too tight.</p><p>The fleet of ships outside has grown. All of them stranded. All of them somewhere they happened to be, because of a cheap ticket, because of a job they took on that was there and that paid, because someone recognised a damaged little ship and stopped for a rescue. His eyes meet Brice's, and she tries that shaky little smile again, raising one shoulder awkwardly.</p><p>These are the people he's with, at the end of the world.</p><p>"Forget that," he hears Kerrin's voice, clear and commanding.</p><p>Malena says nothing.</p><p>"So that's supplies taken care of," she goes on. "What do we do now?"</p><p>For a moment, nobody speaks. Then Lee hears a slow exhalation of breath, and Malena says something about following up on the passenger manifest, finding out where people are from, they'll need to know their crew is doing something for them.</p><p>"I can do that," Kerrin says.</p><p>It won't be a pleasant job, dealing with people just barely hanging on. Lee turns around slowly, as casually as possible. "Want any help?"</p><p>"No," she says, sounding unfriendly, but Lee is quick enough to know that not hostile isn't too bad with her, and he shrugs, nodding.</p><p>"Okay."</p><p>"I could use your help here," Brice says, pushing herself up off the floor. She gestures vaguely at the controls around her. "Until Dane comes back; we keep drifting off."</p><p>~*~*~*</p><p>They keep on drifting, though Lee brings them into a better position; better for communication, the kid explains, whose name is Joseph and who does a little bit of everything around here, which means he gets yelled at by everyone, depending on the occasion. It's three minutes of almost normal conversation, until Joseph says he almost joined the Fleet but they wouldn't take him for officer training, and after that he goes really quiet.</p><p>It's easy enough, keeping the ship stable, despite unfamiliar controls. He's to keep the heavy transport in sight, so Joseph can try to get their attention; they must be in contact with headquarters if they're giving out instructions for the refugees, and Joseph informs them of their status, their passengers and their broken communications system with flashes of the signal light, over and over.</p><p>Eventually the pilot comes back, smelling of smoke; Lee gets up, but he sticks around for a moment, asks about a weird reaction of the starboard thrusters. Dane tells him it's normal; he's friendly and calm, almost weirdly so, but Lee takes the professionalism gladly anyway.</p><p>"That noise -- is that normal, too?" The hum has got louder, or maybe it just seems that way to Lee because Brice and Kerrin have left the bridge and nobody else is talking.</p><p>"No. Brice is on it; something about the heat transformation. Something got shaken up when that ship hit us, I guess." He shrugs, and it's not quite smooth but the relative lack of concern seems genuine. "Bit of a nasty bump. Brice can take care of it."</p><p>"I'm sure." He means it. Nothing related to the engine is a laughing matter in their situation, but there are only so many things he can worry about at the same time, and he chooses to shelve that one until there's more cause.</p><p>"Excuse me." Sheyla is not trembling this time; she's grown into it, being the bearer of ever worse news. Her attention is on Lee, but now it's not due to confusion. News for him in particular.</p><p>The fleet is disintegrating. Staggering losses, all over the map. No telling who's in charge or if there's much to be in charge of. A Cylon attack, it has finally filtered through. She reports all that very quietly, and Lee thinks it's a very low-level finale to this piece, an afterthought, a footnote.</p><p>"I don't know if we'll get more. I don't know if anyone is still sending."</p><p>If they're losing, if there's no defense left then it's bad for all of them, so she really shouldn't be talking to him like this, like he'll be the one falling apart now.</p><p>Lee sits down in the nearest empty seat and just-- doesn't think for a moment. Doesn't let it overwhelm him. He knew this already. An attack with that much force, this fast, this... efficient -- it doesn't surprise him. Can't surprise him.</p><p>He's done with his turn as pilot, he might as well just take a minute to sit. Malena will tell him when there's something for him to do.</p><p>Cylons. It seems impossible, a fairy tale made reality. His father fought in that war. His father survived that war.</p><p>There's a man in the passenger area whose daughter is on the <em>Triton</em>. Lee didn't mean to lie to him. All those battlestars, huge and resilient and unyielding, and the enemy is picking them off like it's nothing at all. Giants in space, so tough, immovable, wiped out with hardly a warning.</p><p>Hard to imagine what they can do, how they can possibly hope to survive. Best not to think about it. Best not to think.</p><p>He raises his head when the ship turns sharply enough to make the drone of the engine spike; it's a wide spin that leaves them facing the other way.</p><p>"What's going on?"</p><p>Malena is standing close to Joseph, his brow furrowed. "We're getting instructions to receive a shuttle."</p><p>"Instructions from whom?" Lee doesn't mean for his voice to be this brusque; it just comes out that way. Military. He thinks of the last order he got and how he hates the military sometimes, how he hates all he military crap about his father and there's something burning in the back of his throat.</p><p>"From <em>Colonial One</em>."</p><p>It's hard to believe. Impossible. "The president's alive?" With a standby shuttle, if the palace didn't take a direct hit, if they somehow managed to avoid an attack force so powerful--</p><p>"Someone who's president is." Malena frowns, like he's not sure what to do with the information. "They said she wants to come aboard."</p><p>Haiden, Lee thinks immediately, sitting up. Secretary of Defense sure likes her battlestars and her on-site inspections; good chance she wasn't in Caprica City. He's never liked her much, but she's not entirely incompetent. She knows the Fleet. She can gather what's left of them, and then maybe there's some way--</p><p>A lurch of the ground rocks him back in his chair, sends Malena staggering, and there's a loud rumbling noise from underneath that drives Lee to his feet as soon as the shaking stops. "What was that?"</p><p>The captain's face looks ill. His turn now, Lee thinks, something cold and apprehensive taking hold of him.</p><p>"Brice was working on the engine," Dane says, barely above a gasp, but the continuous hum has stopped.</p><p>"Damn," Malena mutters, still looking freaked but he's on his way, and Lee follows, their footsteps loud in the sudden quiet.</p><p>~*~*~*</p><p>Three decks lower, they almost jump down the ladder and there is Brice, dirt on her face but with no sign of injury. Malena takes her by both shoulders as if to make sure, and she grips his lower arms, her eyes wide. "The engine. We need to shut it down, it'll blow the fuel pipes."</p><p>"What happened?" Visibly checking himself, Malena lets go of her, and Lee doesn't blame him for the nervousness in his voice.</p><p>Brice pushes her shoulders back, wiping a hand over her sweaty upper lip. "I'm not sure. Something's overheating the engine and with the way it's built, the fuel flow... I've powered everything down but I can't go in there unless we shut it down, and I need to do that from the bridge." She breathes deeply, but goes on just as fast. "One of the manoeuvring thrusters blew, I think. That's what you felt."</p><p>"Fire?" Lee asks.</p><p>She shakes her head quickly, her chest heaving. She must have been running. "Thank the gods, no."</p><p>Malena is stuck staring at her, and Lee is wondering if he's doing some complicated math or whatever but Brice didn't sound like they had the time, so he snaps, "Let's go," and grips the handrail of the ladder.</p><p>Brice follows right behind him, and by the time they're on the upper deck, Malena has caught up. "You can't shut it down," he says just as they're entering the bridge.</p><p>"What?" Lee turns around and Brice almost bumps into him, but then she stares at the captain, too.</p><p>Malena's lips have gone white, and the edge of panic has crept into his voice. "There's got to be some other way for you to fix it," he says, and it sends a chill through Lee because the last thing he wants to hear with their engine down and their worlds under attack is their captain pleading like this.</p><p>"But-- I mean-- we have to..." Brice's eyes fly from him to Lee and back; she's torn, doubtful, and she <em>said</em> it, Lee heard her conviction and her absolute clarity about what to do, and he doesn't need to know about engines to know this is bad.</p><p>"Brice, you said it; we need to shut it down. Something's blown up already."</p><p>"No," Malena shakes his head, keeps on shaking it, moving past them towards Jenna's diagnostic station where she was in some discussion or other with Kerrin. "We <em>can't</em> shut down the FTL drive, not now."</p><p>"What's wrong with the FTL drive?" Jenna asks, clearly shocked, but she gets no answer, and Kerrin stares silently, retreating from Malena's intensity and Lee has a feeling that doesn't happen often.</p><p>Lee catches up with the captain in four fast strides. "Are you out of your mind?"</p><p>"Have you looked around?" Malena snaps back, his lips white and bloodless, and there's something fierce in his stare and Lee wants to tell him he understands, that the idea of sitting ducks scares the hell out of him too, but he heard what Brice said and he's a crap mechanic but he's sure, so sure that she meant it, that she wouldn't say that lightly. "We do this, we're frakked."</p><p>"Brice," Lee orders, without turning around. "Tell him."</p><p>She says nothing, and Malena barely looks for her over Lee's shoulder. "This is what we have," he says through clenched teeth. "This ship. As is. And if we can't <em>run</em>--"</p><p>"Your engineer," Lee says, forcing his voice down, "has told you: it's going to blow."</p><p>"We can't fight; nobody left who can fight <em>for</em> us."</p><p>"None of which will matter if we get ripped to pieces -- Brice!"</p><p>"I guess I could try to go in with the suit, if we bring it down real low," Brice says in a tiny voice, closer to tears than Lee has seen her yet and right then he wants to hit Malena for losing it, for making Brice lose it because she's lying, lying to them or for Malena or to herself, and he knows any other day he could turn this around, but the distant terror of the enemy force is swept up by sitting on a ticking bomb and doing nothing, doing the stupid thing just because they're afraid, and it's hard to be diplomatic when his heart is hammering like this.</p><p>"You can do it," Malena says to her, all urgency and nervous reassurance.</p><p>"Brice." Lee tries to catch her eye, tries to get her to focus, because even when she's scared she's <em>on</em>, he's seen her, she'd been <em>running</em>, and he knows she meant it, and he can see she's wavering, she <em>still</em> knows, only it's not a call she can make, crippling them in order to save them. "You said we had to shut it down. Go shut it down."</p><p>Malena's face hardens, and Lee knows the next words out of his mouth. "You don't give orders on this ship."</p><p>"That's not-- for frak's sake, listen <em>to your own people. </em>"</p><p>"You don't know anything about this ship <em>or</em> my people."</p><p>Malena's people are staring at them both, Jenna and Joseph and the pilot and Kerrin, still looking tall where she sat down, motionless, and Brice, her face almost blank with not knowing what to do, whether to trust herself more than the captain, and it's a struggle not to yell at her to get it together.</p><p>"Listen," Lee says again, calmer this time, trying to reason, but Malena is done listening to him, done taking orders from some random military jackass and if it weren't so dangerous, Lee would appreciate the irony. "I don't like this any more than you do, but unless you make that decision now, we're going to get fried."</p><p>"I've got twenty three people on this ship," Malena says, and it's so stupid and so much him trying to be responsible, and Lee feels trapped with his anger and his sympathy and there's Brice's voice in his head again, her anxious but clear-headed assessment, and Malena is letting fear get the better of him. "I won't have them stranded. Not here, not without knowing anything." Subtly, probably without meaning to he raises his chin, staring Lee down, making himself wide before the console as if Lee is going to use physical force. Lee thinks he might.</p><p>"They've docked," Joseph says out of the blue. He's staring hard at his console and then at some spot on the floor between Lee and the captain, and Lee struggles to backtrack and make sense of the announcement.</p><p>"What?" Malena asks, as thrown as Lee.</p><p>"The shuttle of-- the shuttle we were expecting."</p><p>Oh gods. "They need to turn around," Lee says immediately. "This ship's not <em>safe</em>."</p><p>"It'll hold," Malena says to Brice, again in that imploring tone. "We're not moving, not engaging the thrusters..."</p><p>"I-- maybe." Brice is floundering, no longer sure of anything. "A short while."</p><p>"Then let's make sure that's long enough." Malena nods at her, a good approximation of encouragement, foolish as it is, and a glance full of doubt and trepidation falls on Lee and those controls. But Lee wouldn't know what to do with them. He doesn't know this ship or its engine, and they can leave him here, and he wouldn't be able to do a thing.</p><p>"Brice," Lee says again, breathing out against the strain in his chest and against the choking weight of futility. "We're all scared, but you <em>know</em> what you should do. You told us."</p><p>She shakes her head slowly, weakly. "I'll try going in with the suit," she says, a quivering, helpless apology. "I can try to stabilise it without taking it offline."</p><p>Lee bites down on the insult he wants to shout Malena's way, and it's Kerrin who first gets moving, almost fleeing the bridge saying something about the shuttle, and then even Malena gets out of his way and they leave him there, and he cannot do a thing.</p><p>~*~*~*</p><p>Maybe there's room in the shuttle for a few of them. He can't change Malena's mind and he can't go over his head, but Lee hurries after them down ladders and corridors to the hangar deck because he can warn the president and maybe they can cram a few more people into the shuttle at least, and Malena's fear won't get them all killed. Lee has no idea how to make that choice, who would get to go but at least it's something, it could be a plan.</p><p>He catches up with them halfway, and Kerrin avoids his eyes as much as Malena and Brice, who almost stumbles at one point despite looking studiously at the floor.</p><p>"For gods' sake, Malena, you have to send them away," he tries again as they're rounding the last corner. "This is the President of the Colonies we're talking about." The last thing they need, the President of the Colonies on board while Malena is making them sit on an engine that's going to explode any second.</p><p>"Shut up," Kerrin says in a raspy voice, glaring at him furiously; she didn't hear Brice's voice back there, Lee tells himself, it's not her he blames, and then they enter the hangar deck where a very small shuttle is perched between the hangar doors and Lee's Viper, and Lee knows there will be no escape on this shuttle, and there's Secretary Roslin, a uniformed spaceline officer and a nervous-looking kid at her side helping her down the exit ramp.</p><p>The pieces fall into place, and Lee stops dead at the image. The fleet is gone, the colonies-- it shouldn't surprise him after all those deaths that there's nobody left, nobody but the Secretary of Education to assume the presidency. He should have put it together right away. The colonial transport with a cabinet member on board, the size and force of the attack, a new president.</p><p>He senses the others' shock, too, the disorientation at someone they might never have seen before coming aboard their ship, claiming to be president now.</p><p>At last Malena steps forward, identifying himself as the captain, and the kid with the notebook makes some improvised introductory gesture, saying, "President Laura Roslin."</p><p>The kid is nervous; Roslin isn't. She offers her hand to Malena. "We've had some trouble reaching you," she says. She has a pleasant voice, and it's very steady. "We weren't sure we were getting all the information about the state you're in."</p><p>"I-- we had a collision earlier. Our communications system is down."</p><p>"So I gathered." Sweeping the assembled crew, her eyes meet Lee's and he sees the surprise there, and then she nods in a relieved sort of way, and smiles. "I'm glad you're all right, Captain."</p><p>Lee isn't sure what to answer. "Yes," he says stupidly, still stuck on the math and the Secretary of Education as president. She considers Lee for a second longer, as if there's something else she means to say, but then she turns back to Malena. "How many people do you have on board?"</p><p>Malena is fumbling, like it's a difficult question, but Lee can't be mad at him for that. "Twenty-three."</p><p>"I see." She exchanges a glance with notebook kid, and he takes that down. "Any injuries? Do you need medical help?"</p><p>Malena shakes his head, clearly struggling to get on top of this again. There's something about her, Lee thinks, something-- out of place, almost; her clear gaze and her calm demeanour, so unlike the forced restraint they've held on to, tried to hold on to.</p><p>She's gathering information. Offering medical help. Taking down their number. Small things. Basic things.</p><p>"A few people are in shock," Lee follows up on Malena's wordless response because he thinks he should, and it comes easy to him, reporting to her. "But nobody was injured."</p><p>"I'm glad to hear that."</p><p>"President Adar," Malena says after a moment, "he was killed?"</p><p>And it frightened her too; Lee sees the remnants of it in the sadness she doesn't hide, the slow breath she takes. "I'm afraid so," she says, and her voice remains even. "I'm afraid the damage to the colonies is... more than we can imagine." And she regards Malena silently, gives him time to absorb.</p><p>Yes. It frightened her, too, and then she found her next step, found the small things that need doing and it brought her here.</p><p>Movement forward. A direction.</p><p>With an almost startled look around, Malena seems to remember they're still standing in the hangar deck. "Would you like to..." He gestures vaguely, and she nods and that's when Lee finally gets it together, when he knows what his next step has to be.</p><p>"Madam President," he says clearly, and she stops. "We have a situation on board."</p><p>Malena is a bit slow to react but then he says, "Gods dammit--"</p><p>She gives both of them a sharp look. "What kind of situation?"</p><p>Malena shuts his mouth.</p><p>"The engine overheated; it's unstable. We have to shut it down completely or it'll rip the ship apart." Concise, to the point, impersonal. A report. She is someone to report to.</p><p>"And you haven't done that."</p><p>They haven't done that. Lee doesn't flinch under her scrutiny, but the captain does. "We--" Malena voice is small; urging, but small. "I explained it; we'd be helpless, we'd just be stuck here and nobody knows where this attack has come from--"</p><p>Lee says nothing, just looks at her, watches her take in the information, her silent observation of Malena trying to get a grip. There's a subtle shift to her posture, a way she draws back minutely as she understands. "I see," she says again, and she puts a steadying hand on Malena's arm, an understated show of support, but the calm look she has for Lee is stronger.</p><p>She takes a moment to think, to quickly gauge them all, and Lee knows she's the Secretary of Education and the last thing she did was say a few nice words at a battlestar decommissioning, and he knows he'll take the orders she'll give them anyway. She's making them a promise. Right there, with her composure and her quiet authority, she's making a statement and a promise, that there's something beyond this day, this destruction.</p><p>"I understand your concern," she says to Malena, a slight tilt to her head. "We've just been contacted by a refinery ship. They have an engineering team aboard." A exchange with her assistant, and she waits for his nod of confirmation before she returns her full attention to the captain. "We're going to send somebody to help you."</p><p>Malena is still confused, still not quite believing. "I-- thank you."</p><p>"Not at all," she says, and then her words include all of them, the captain and Lee and Brice, who is pale but intensely focused on Roslin, and Kerrin, who looks more shaken than when she yelled at Lee on the bridge. "We're considering possible places that could serve us as a refuge at the moment. Right now we're trying to ascertain the needs and capabilities of all our ships, and then we'll see where we can go next." She pauses, gives it time to sink in, and Lee can't help believing it, can't help the relief at the thought of someone out there who knows what to do, who will point them where to go. "Make sure you stay in touch with <em>Colonial One</em>. We'll let you know when the engineering team is ready, too."</p><p>Her assistant leans over and says something under his breath, probably urging her to cut it short, and she nods. "We'll get you what you need," she promises Malena. "You can count on that." And he seems to break a bit with the hope offered to him, for him and his twenty-three people. "I'm sure you'll do what's necessary."</p><p>And Lee thought there'd be an order; he'd have carried it out, made it happen, but the momentary worry is gone when her eyes come to rest on him again, and she's not trying to soothe him like she did Malena, or reassure him like the others. The quickest of examinations, a second's decision he sees forming.</p><p>"Captain," she says, in that calm, assertive voice. It's Lee she means. "I wanted to thank you for what you did." She holds out her hand, smiles a small, appropriate smile when he shakes it. "For the risk you took. We all owe our lives to you."</p><p>He feels the others' attention drawn to him, the weight of her easy gratitude that settles on him, and he knows it's not a time to flinch.</p><p>He nods once, lightly, showing her he understands. He'll do what's necessary. "You're welcome, sir."</p><p>She smiles again, and then she turns to her shuttle, and Lee turns with Brice and the rest, leaving the hangar deck.</p><p>Through the observation window he watches Roslin walk up the exit ramp, and she doesn't look at him again, but she doesn't need to. She's made her point; he senses it, looking around at these people he's with, their new quiet that's not about a lack of talking. They're waiting. Still afraid, but there's a next step for them now too.</p><p>The hangar doors open and the shuttle lifts, taking the president back to <em>Colonial One</em> or to the next ship in need of instruction, in need of direction.</p><p>Lee glances at Malena only in passing. He doesn't need to see him back down. His eyes find Brice's, and she doesn't look away this time. "Go shut it down," he says.</p><p>She goes.</p><p>~*~*~*</p><p>Surveying procedures from a very quiet bridge, Lee is nervous with the engine offline; he admits that. But it's better than waiting for the floor to explode beneath him, better than listening for sounds of bursting metal through the ringing in his ears. It's workable. Survivable, and he's still unfamiliar with the ship's readings but it no longer has him anxious.</p><p>Malena has gone to check on the passengers, to tell them about their status and President Roslin, to get out of Lee's way. Kerrin has gone below as well -- the more detailed passenger manifest; there's all the more reason for it now that there's someone out there, counting on their information -- and she didn't ask him but she told him, and waited for an objection.</p><p>Joseph is at the pilot's station, wrapped up in monitoring their drift -- no engine, can't be helped, they'll drift for a while until the president sends them help -- and Lee isn't sure who filled him in but he doesn't ask any questions, so Lee just lets him do his job.</p><p>Jenna looks up briefly from whatever she's doing as they hear Brice clomp up the ladder to the deck; whatever she's chosen to do is keeping her quietly occupied, and Lee is fine with that.</p><p>There is a grim single-mindedness to Brice as she comes in to report on her progress, and in between some very fast explanations she's scowling a lot under all that dirt, and Lee understands only half of what she's saying but he likes the image.</p><p>He sends her off and she orders Joseph to go with her and bring a flashlight because she can see frak all in that light, by which she means the dim glow of the emergency life support, and Lee stops her with an upheld hand.</p><p>"Sorry; I need him here," he says. "To keep in touch with <em>Colonial One</em>." They've been told to keep in touch; they'll drift out of view eventually, but they'll keep in touch for as long as they can. "My signalling's pretty crap," he adds.</p><p>Brice snorts, which is followed by an embarrassed look, and he shrugs and tries a smile.</p><p>"I'll help you," Jenna says, surprising them both. She doesn't look at Lee, but she walks over to a wall compartment and gets out a flashlight before she walks out, small and sunken. Sunken, but going off to fix things, one step at a time.</p><p>"Right," Brice says awkwardly, and she's about to go back to work when Joseph calls out, alarmed, "What was that?"</p><p>Lee is at the pilot's station instantly, searching the fleet of ships outside. "What was what?"</p><p>"Some small ship; it just jumped in and then jumped away; it was very fast." Joseph is off balance, scared by what he saw, and Lee is through the short list of possibilities in an instant, and feels like he is reeling except he's rooted to the spot. Gods, no, not now, just a few hours more, just a little while longer.</p><p>"It didn't stop," Joseph says, slowing down, realising, and Lee knows he's caught on faster than Brice, maybe he's even seen that thing, seen it was different, alien--</p><p>"What was it?" Brice asks, but in a tone of foreboding.</p><p>Lee looks outside, frozen with what he knows right to his bones; denial won't come to him, not even for a desperate moment.</p><p>So many ships. So defenseless. "Enemy contact," he says quietly, and he sees the fear in Joseph and Brice's faces, both turned to him for an answer, an order, what they should do, and he knows what he'd do if he were in charge of any other ship, if he were over there--</p><p>"Signal to <em>Colonial One</em>," he says, a strength in his voice he doesn't feel. They must have seen it, too. Must have seen it. Must know--</p><p>She will know, or someone will tell her.</p><p>The clicking sound of Joseph transmitting what they've seen, requesting instructions is maddening. Joseph curses once; a mistake, he repeats the message, just to make sure.</p><p>And then they wait. Thirty seconds. A minute. Lee stares out the window, hardly daring to breathe, waiting for an answer that might not come. That Lee knows won't come, deep down, and yet he waits, and hopes.</p><p>The fleet starts to move.</p><p>"What are they doing?" Brice grips his arm so tight it should hurt, only Lee doesn't feel it.</p><p>No; not the entire fleet. Most of the fleet. Lee searches for signs of scattering, of panic, captains losing it and striking out on their own.</p><p>"Are they running away?" Everything is in the way Brice's voice cracks at the end, that they cannot run and that they cannot do anything else, and Lee feels something dark and cold take hold of him, but it's not panic, just as there's no sign of a panic outside.</p><p>A coordinated retreat.</p><p>"What are they <em>doing</em>?" Brice barely breathes it, and Joseph's hands tighten over the controls and then he jerks them back and he doesn't know what to do, and Lee knows exactly what they're doing and he can't form the words.</p><p>Getting to safety. She's getting them to safety.</p><p>"Oh gods," Brice whimpers, muffled by the hand she has clasped over her mouth. Then she dashes for the starboard console. "They <em>know</em> our communications system is down," she says, her voice thick with terror, her hands flying over switches and buttons. "They know. We told her. If they sent us a message--"</p><p>Lee watches the ships that pull away and he knows he's afraid but somehow he doesn't feel that either. About two thirds of the whole, he estimates. The big ones. The undamaged ones. Brice is trying, messaging frantically by signal light, and Lee lets her, lets her fight for another few seconds and lets her hold on to that last chance while his body goes numb and he thinks he can't breathe but somehow he does, because he hears himself gasp, and he touches the console but it's as if his fingertips are cold and somehow not there, and he thinks that's a strange thing to feel when you're about to die.</p><p>There was no message.</p><p>How long, he wonders, watching the flashes of ships jumping away, jumping to safety one after another, how long and whether it's his duty to send Brice back down to the engine room, to let them believe and fight and hope, just for a few seconds. Whether it's his duty to lie to them and let them hope.</p><p>For a brief moment it's almost quiet, quiet outside with so many ships gone, their fleet of refugees so diminished; they look stunned to Lee, stunned into silence and immobility even as he knows it's only quiet because the dish is gone and they have no communications.</p><p>Then there's a new flash, just within their view, and another, and another, and the tell-tale traces of missiles cutting through space, and he doesn't have to wonder anymore.</p><p>He doesn't turn to tell Brice, to tell any of them. It'll be fast, just a few seconds; they don't have to stand with him and watch it coming. Lee can do that much.</p><p>It's not like they had a chance; they only believed that they did, for a little while, lost and desperate as they were, and now they'll die, drifting in this crippled ship of theirs, and there's nothing left out there, nothing to shield them as the end of the world catches up with them.</p><p> </p>
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